CA - Judge rejects retardation claim of death row inmate Horace Kelly

...said he doubted the credibility of the defense witnesses and asked why lawyers did not cite a deteriorating mental status in Kelly's previous trials...
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/8460823/detail.html

bakerprune64 said:

...said he doubted the credibility of the defense witnesses and asked why lawyers did not cite a deteriorating mental status in Kelly's previous trials...
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/8460823/detail.html

Click to expand...

And there in lies the loophool for this ruling. Each one of these cases are going to be very similar. Unless there was something brought up about mental capacity or retardation during the original trial, it will be very difficult to bring it in now........UNLESS, they can show a long history of mental retardation or dimished capacity long before the crime took place and the lawyer failed to bring it in under a mitigating circumstance. This is where ineffective assistance of council will come into play. Problem here is when you plead NOT GUILTY, you are saying you plain didn't commit the crime so how can you plead guilty but retarded as a last ditch effort to be saved.........You can't. The courts don't usually accept this plea during the appeal, years later when it will first come before them.

I will guess that not many, if any at all, will be ruled otherwise........It's just another avenue to ensure the fairness of the original sentence.

Note: Retardation is not the same thing as uneducated or ignorant. A lot of the inmates try to play stupid and will attempt to claim they are retarded........retarded is an IQ of 76 or lower.....You can't fake it.